Cross-Canada with the MAHARG's

Cabot Trail – Day 2

Breakfast was served in the dining room and we enjoyed visiting with two other couples from Germany & Australia while we enjoyed the fresh baked bread! Our hosts gave us some tips for stops along the way today and then we set off to drive the western half of Cabot Trail.

Evidence of the recent hurricane can be seen on some of the hillsides – trees have been stripped of their leaves and any that remain are brown.  Locals wonder how the fall colours will unfold this year.

We stopped at two interesting sites within the park.  First was Lone Shieling or a shepherd’s hut made of stone.  With walls that thick it would last a long time.   Oddly enough though we haven’t seen any sheep yet in NS.

Further down the road we took a short boardwalk tour of a bog with some interesting plant life including a Pitcher Plant that eats live insects.  At this time of the year all that remains is the stalk and shell of the plant.

Lunch was the BEST bowl of seafood chowder yet – rich, creamy, full of various types of seafood and no potatoes. 

Last stop was to enjoy a nice long stroll on the beach at Inverness. The temp was +23 and we had fun searching out bits of sea-glass that gets smoothed by the waves and rocks on shore. 

  

Cabot Trail – Day 1.

Our first stop was to visit the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddock. It’s a lovely national park with a good number of well-organized artifacts. The first section was about AGB’s initial interest in speech articulation for deaf people;   his mother and wife were both deaf.  His inventions and interests were varied and aside from the telephone included aircraft, hydrofoil, and genetics.

The eastern half of Cabot Trail provides a few ocean views, but for the most part winds its way through the trees.  We were very glad to be driving the Equinox and not the RV. The road is narrow, winding and rough at times.  But when there was a view it was great!

Our neighbour Kelsey told us that friends had visited Meat Cove at the top of Cape Breton and highly recommended it.  The part of the road beyond the actual Cabot Trail is not for the faint of heart – it’s not paved and quite rough.  But the drive was worth it!!

The John Cabot park is near our B&B – interesting to think of what it must have been like for those early explorers.

The B&B we booked for the night was back near the Cabot Trail and had a bathtub!! Ahhhh.

Because of the size of our RV we’re required to book the ferry crossing to NS in advance, so we did and were told that our sailing time would be 7:30 pm.  We haven’t seen much of the eastern part of PEI so thought we’d drive out there, unhook the Equinox and putter around.  The best place we could find to leave the RV for the day was close to the ferry terminal and we decided to check and see if we could possibly get on an earlier sailing and indeed we did – just 30 min after we asked we were on the ferry! It never hurts to ask… The sky was blue, the ocean was calm – a perfect time to sail!

We’re looking forward to driving the Cabot trail over the next couple of days and have found a campsite at Baddeck, NS as our starting point.  Tonight we used our Passport America membership for the first time.  50% off the daily rate; what a deal.

We drove to the little old Victoria this morning.  It’s a village with a number of older buildings.  Very cute.  We had coffee and chocolates from an old family chocolate business.

The afternoon was spent in the heart of Charlottetown and of course our quest to visiting the legislature and get “the pen”.  Unfortunately their legislature and the historical confederation buildings are under renovation so we couldn’t tour them – however a model and mock-up of the room was available.  A very kind commissionaire in the temporary site for the legislature listened to our cross-Canada story and when we asked if there was a gift shop he said no, but offered to check around for a pen.  He solicited the help of a woman who called yet another person who indeed had a pen!  Phew!  Mission accomplished.

We headed down to the harbour where three cruise ships were docked. The harbour is well set up to accommodate the tourists and so we enjoyed a little shopping and some PEI Cow’s ice cream.

 One of my old Sunday School students, Josh Zaph, lives in Charlottetown.  We arranged to meet he and his family for supper and had a fantastic visit in a lovely Irish Pub – The Old Triangle.

We set off to explore some of the island today and started mid-island in the Cavendish area to have coffee our neighbour’s mom in Sprinbrook.  Great way to start the day!

From there we set off to see the dunes of Cavendish.  It was cool and breezy, but at least not raining. The waves rolling into the red soil on shore made some unique pink foam!  This area was hit hard by Hurricane Dorian – crews were still working to clear trees in the national park. 

Then we headed west to take in the North Cape Coastal drive.  We stopped at the NW tip to watch the waves and see the many wind turbines – great place to harvest the power of the wind! 

As we drove we saw a sign for a woolen mill and decided to stop in.  It reminded us of the one in Carstairs, AB.  It’s a beehive of various activities from processing the raw wool to weaving blankets.

A little further south we stopped at Stompin’ Tom Connor’s museum.  I honestly didn’t know the incredibly difficult childhood he had endured.  I also hadn’t heard that he returned 6 Juno Awards as an act of protest when artists who no longer lived in Canada received the award.  He never toured in the USA.  Interesting.

Time to pack up and head north to PEI!  But first, we needed to stop at a train museum that we passed a couple days ago.  At first we thought it was closed, but noticed a couple guys in the office as we walked by.  They confirmed that the museum was actually closed that day, and when they saw a couple other young women who also wanted to see the museum, the two guys gladly opened things up and toured us around.  It’s a very well organized museum with some great artifacts.

One thing we’re learning is that getting from point A to point B here isn’t at all like the prairies.  There are often bodies of water, etc to navigate around but we did make it to the Confederation Bridge.  One of the advantages of crossing in the motorhome (despite the wind) is that because we sit higher in it we could actually see over the side of the bridge (something others had said they could do in a car).

A very helpful young woman at the PEI information centre gave us some great highlights, updates (parks closed due to damage from the recent hurricane Dorian) and Ceildihs, in fact a whole sheet full of them.

After settling into our campsite we drove into the downtown area of Charlottetown to enjoy the Ross Family Ceildih of 1 brother and 2 sisters.  The brother plays piano, one sister on violin/fiddle and other sister on guitar.  The sisters both sing and step dance. Their mom (60 something I’d say) joined them in a couple of step dances too!  The music and tales was such a great way to spend the evening and be introduced to the island.

We drove from Charlo, NB to the Bay of Fundy on the 15^th.

We got up and at it on the 16^th to go “next door” to Hopewell Rocks in the Bay of Fundy.  Low tide was at noon, which gave us all morning to hike down to the rocks and explore the various formations carved out of the sand and rock as the tide goes in and out.  God is an amazing artist!

The afternoon was spent driving south to scout out a few old covered bridges and a short hike in Fundy National Park.  Oh yes, and we picked up some amazing baking in Elmo!!

On the way back we took a little detour to check out Cape Enrage.  Sounds like a great place to do some storm watching!!

Coffee this morning was back down the road to Port Daniel to meet Joy & Bill Carson.  Lyndon remembers meeting his second (maybe third) cousin Joy when she was visiting Calgary from the Gaspe in the 60s.   We had a fantastic (too short) visit and look forward to the next time we hope to visit them.

Bert Hayes is back in Ft. McMurray for a few months and we were sorry to miss visiting with him, but a quick stop to say hello to Allison and admire his impressive stringed instrument collection makes us want to return for the annual Shigawacke music weekend some August in the future.

Back to Carl & Lois’ place to say farewell…too soon.  We`ve had such a great time learning about the family and the area.  Til next time.

Just down the road Mona & Billy Court (Mona is Carl & Lois` daughter) had lunch ready for us.  The time sharing stories of travels and treasures (gorgeous antiques) in their home went far too fast.  Maybe they will come out west to visit us? But if not, that corner by the wood stove is already calling me back to settle in and read a book 🙂

 More of our adventure waits as we headed further down the road and crossed the border into New Brunswick.

No trip to the east coast is complete without some fresh lobster…Carl took Lyndon and I to the local Poisonnerie (fish shop) to pick some out.  We enjoyed looking at the display and freezer full of a wide variety of fish and bought some salmon to enjoy later.  Lunch was lobster of course so we snapped, picked and slurped our way through with aprons and pics!

After lunch Carl took us for a drive to meet Alice Hayes and to walk off our lunch with a scenic stroll out to the lighthouse on the point of her land that overlooks Port Daniel.  What a spectacular view!

A local place of interest is an abandoned railway tunnel just outside Port Daniel. Unfortunately large sections have fallen into serious disrepair and they are unused at this time.

A story we heard Lyndon’s mom tell was of the time that Gramma Dow brought the oldest 4 children back to Port Daniel to visit Great Gramma Dow.  What a thrill that trip from Saskatchewan back to the Gaspe coast must have been.  The kids must have been wide-eyed at all they saw, including the ocean!

Supper was at the local canteen, thanks to Gail Hayes treating the bunch of us.  When we came out of the restaurant, the full moon was rising over the Bay of Chaleur. 

George & Nicky Hayes (their son and DIL) live on the road between the restaurant and Carl & Lois’ so we stopped by for a quick introduction and visit.                                                                                     

Today we enjoyed an area road-trip that included: a stop in Black Cape where Uncle Gerald Dow (Barb’s cousin) who is a 97 year old WW2 veteran.  He was delighted to meet relatives from “out west”.  He and his late wife, Jean, had visited Barb & Vern on the farm in Saskatchewan.

Just a little further down the road we stopped to visit Joan Dow (she had been married to Ivan Dow-Clare Dow’s son). They had also been out to Saskatchewan for one of the Dow reunions. 

Last stop for the day was to meet Leslie (Uncle Gerald’s son) and Mariette Dow.  Leslie is nearing the end of his summer as a salmon conservation office, ensuring the local salmon catch-and-release laws are followed. 

Carl & Lois’ home and nearly all of our drive today followed the coastline of the Bay of Chaleur – what a beautiful site to soak in – we understand why Barb Graham was so eager to paint it.